05/27/2011

NBA Championship Winning Coach Bill Fitch: "I'm a Cuban Man."

Was speaking to former NBA coach Bill Fitch yesterday for a piece I am doing on Rick Carlisle and it surprised me to hear him to say this, "I'd really like to see Mark Cuban get (a title)," he said. "I'm a Cuban man. I'd love to see David Stern's face when he hands Cuban that championship trophy."

Had to ask - why?

"Oh, c'mon, you know why," he said.

I was under the impression a lot of the old guard coaches think nothing of Mark Cuban and his out-there antics. Fitch is OK with it. Mostly because he believes Mark Cuban badly wants to win, and for a player or coach that means a lot.

"I know sometimes he gets in trouble and stuff, but I love it," Fitch said. "He's not just there because he's a rich man. Now, he is, but he's there because he loves it and he wants to win a championship. Some of the crap (the NBA) gives him and those fines and all of that, I just think he deserves to win one.

"He is the guy that changed that team. He put the stuff in their locker room. Each could watch film in their locker room. He took care of players as far as the travel. He made that a franchise that players wanted to play for. You ask any player that played there and they will tell you they had an owner that wanted to win and who cared. You sometimes can't get players to agree on what to have for breakfast and when they agree on something as big as that that's very important."

In case you are wondering, Fitch is very much retired these days and lives not too far from Houston.